I am an evil giraffe. But I'm trying, Nick. I'm trying REAL HARD to be the wizard.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said during a Wednesday morning meeting with committee chairmen that he and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) intended to hold them to a Friday deadline to submit detailed lists of duplicative and wasteful programs that can be eliminated from the $3 trillion budget.

“You need to produce something on this,” Hoyer said, according to a person in the room. “You all need to find some programs to cut.”

Hoyer’s rattled for a bunch of reasons: Boehner’s letter canceling Republican earmarks; the YouCut initiative, which is resonating more than many people expected; and, of course, because Democrats have been enthusiastically – excuse me: ‘pornographically’ – demonstrating the difference between ‘bad and worse‘ when it comes to fiscal responsibility since the start of this election cycle. Only it’s now close to the end of the election cycle, and the expected wave of support for Democratic policies has been somehow… delayed. So: time to start looking busy, apparently.

I am indulgent on this, I suppose: it won’t do them any good in the long-term, watching them flail is amusing, and they’ll probably cut something that will seriously annoy their base support. In fact, Rep. Cantor should add something like that in next week’s YouCut list; it’s always nice for the rest of the country to come together to show their dislike of the Democratic progressive base…